This Father’s Day, Bobby Minor is thankful. He has a wife, three children and, for a month now, a new heart that’s saving his life.

Minor, 42, began experiencing the symptoms of his genetic heart disease in his mid-20s. The same disease that caused his father, aunt and grandfather to pass away early in life required Minor to wear several pacemakers, have numerous procedures and spend years with chronic fatigue and lightheadedness.

After a procedure in April 2012 at Duke University Medical Center, doctors discovered that blood flow to and from Minor’s heart was abnormal — and that his only hope for a healthy life was to receive a heart transplant.

For the past year, the Minor family has waited on a call from Duke saying they’ve found a match for his heart. He’s continued working his job at Impact Fulfillment Services — mostly sitting at his desk — and has tried to live as normal a life as possible, never going farther than three hours from the hospital in Durham..

He got the call May 15.

“They called around 6 p.m. and said they might have a match, but it could be a false alarm,” Minor said.

Around 9:30 that night, the family was told to go to the hospital. Doctors worked to verify that the transplant would be possible, while Bobby signed numerous papers that told the family he might not make it out of surgery. By 5 a.m. on the 16th, the first of his two surgeries that day began.

For the next four days, Minor could hardly communicate with doctors or his family, and suffered from tremors and seizures.

“My first thought was, he’s gone through surgery to be better, but now he might not come out of it,” said Janci, Minor’s wife. “It made me fearful, but I just had so much peace about it because this is what we prayed for and hoped for. God had provided this for us.”

As soon as Minor was able to interact with visitors at the hospital, he made sure to tell everyone — doctors, nurses, friends and family — that he needed to be out by his daughter’s high school graduation from Burlington Christian Academy on May 31.

Throughout the past year, the Minors said they have received an outpouring of support from their family, friends, church members and even people they’ve never met.

“People we didn’t even know would come up to us and say, ‘You’re Bobby — we’ve been praying for you at our church,’” Minor said.

Last summer, friends hosted a benefit event for Minor at Harvest Baptist Church, where his family attends, and the help continued throughout the following months.

Family and friends have helped clean and do work around the house, brought meals, kept the family company at the hospital at the hospital and offered other forms of support, Janci said.

“There’s not one bad thing to say about the whole experience,” she said

Because Minor’s heart disorder is genetic, his children — Brad, 20; Jessi, 18; and Bryce, 11 — all have check-ups done at Duke each year. As Minor continues to adjust and heal since the surgery, he’s making plans to do things he hasn’t been able to do in years: play outside with Bryce, travel with his family, walk up the stairs without getting tired and even run a 5K race.

“One of the teachers said it’s a miracle I was there that day at Jessi’s graduation,” he said. “I feel that way.”